ASUS claims Android O soon for ZenFone 3, ZenFone 4 lines

With a late Android Wear 2.0 update to its latest ZenWatch devices, ASUS has to be mindful of its software promises. So, is it biting off more than it can chew?

At its ZenFone 4 launch event, ASUS promised a new look ZenUI 4.0 skin over Android featuring 22 fewer stock apps and seven fewer third-party apps than the last version. That means 16 pre-installed apps overall with the external apps being Facebook, Messenger and (Facebook-owned) Instagram. Apps will be run more speedily with Chrome running as much as 55.5 percent faster than in ZenUI 3.0 and Facebook coming up with a 61.1 percent improvement. Other features, such as making the use of two accounts on a social network at once easier and a bookmarker, are also inbound.

While only the ZenFone 4 devices will get ZenUI 4.0 out of the box, it was announced that the ZenFone 3 phones will upgrade to it, too. One thing both will also share in is Android O, as the company announced guaranteed upgrades to version 8.0 before — get this — the second half of 2018.

Jules Wang is News Editor for Pocketnow and one of the hosts of the Pocketnow Weekly Podcast. He came onto the team in 2014 as an intern editing and producing videos and the podcast while he was studying journalism at Emerson College. He graduated the year after and entered into his current position at Pocketnow, full-time.